AKEL MEP Neoklis Sylikiotis to the Commission: Stop the imprisonment of children in Israel!

                                                                        

AKEL MEP and GUE/NGL Vice-President Neoklis Sylikiotis Press Statement

13th November 2015, Brussels

In September alone 156 Palestinian children have been imprisoned in Israel. Approximately 60% of these children have been abducted from their homes during raids carried out by the Israeli armed forces. Testimonies released by the Palestinian Prisoners Committee show that a substantial percentage of the imprisoned children have been brutally beaten and tortured by the Israeli security forces, who do not hesitate to use even electric shocks.

These figures[1], which confirm how serious the situation in Israel is as a result of the continued imprisonment of Palestinian children, were today highlighted before the European Commission itself by AKEL MEP and Vice-President of the Group of the European United Left Neoklis Sylikiotis.

More specifically, AKEL MEP Neoklis Sylikiotis called on the EU’s High Representative to give an answer as to what measures the EU intends to take so that pressure will be put on Israel to respect the human rights of all Palestinians, to stop the brutal attacks against children and to release immediately all those children locked up in prison.

Furthermore, AKEL MEP Neoklis Sylikiotis stressed that Israel’s cruel and inhumane actions against children constitute a flagrant violation of the Universal Declaration of the UN Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which Israel ratified 1991.

[1] The figures in question have been published by the Palestinian NGO ADDAMEER, which is struggling for the human rights of Palestinians who are in Israel’s prisons